There’s a drone in our future, sharp as a weed whacker: Larry Wilson

The Lower Owens River is not the most isolated fishery in the Sierras. Just above Bishop off Highway 395, it’s rather easily accessible. But last Sunday afternoon our group of three fly casters, along with ace local guide Harry Blackburn, had outlasted the six or seven others who’d tried their luck. The Owens, destined for the toothbrush glasses and lawns of Los Angeles, is teeming with trout in that stretch, but it’s very technical water. We never saw anyone else with a fish on, whereas Harry figures our trio landed 75 big browns that day. In the net. Slaying them, metaphorically speaking: Harry’s all catch and release. No, I’m not sharing our set-up, but let’s just say that it’s not about tossing a single dry caddis out for a float.

By early evening I was by myself upstream, finally ready to call it a day after reeling in fish after fish in a particularly productive hole. When you’re in that rhythm there’s something primal about it: If you were in an earlier time, you’d have brought home dinner for the clan for days. As I clomped down the high-desert trail to our trucks, it was those ancient, home-from-the hunt thoughts I was thinking. Then I cast my gaze back to the river where old friend Mike Moffat was still getting his line wet, and there above him in the air hovered ... a drone? Bobbing up and down, apparently Go Pro-ing his every move? What was this, some new Fish & Wildlife intrusion, seeing if we were over our limit?

Wait. On closer inspection, I knew that drone. Bright white. Four props. I’d seen it fly before, buzzing surfers at San Onofre. Its master was Pete, Mike’s older brother, and there he was at the joystick, and, wait, where’d it go, what’s that crashing sound?

Harry found it in a riverside bush, props still spinning like a weed whacker, and he picked it up to keep it out of the rushing water, holding it at arm’s length like the dangerous beast it was until Pete could turn it off. Turns out he’d confused the up command with the down one.

So drones are everywhere, or at least talk of them is. We’re trying to decide what to do with them. It’s like we are all the LAPD, which was recently gifted two from the Seattle Police Department, wise enough to know sky-spies ain’t gonna fly in that city of civil libertarians. Chief Charlie Beck is smart, too. He won’t make any unmanned airborne plans until public hearings are held. No-brainer prediction: After promising never to just pop in and out of our yards for a check on our crops and a peek in the window, California cops will begin to deploy drones in emergencies — kid caught on Eaton Canyon ridge; riots; high-rise fires. And soon they will be commonplace, though whether that will ever really go beyond novelty bottle service poolside in Vegas to suburban pizza or Amazon package delivery, no one can say.

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Here, commercial use of unmanned aircraft of any kind is against federal law. In other countries, they’re being used for innovative filming in action-movie shots, for instance. So the FAA is already considering relaxing restrictions for the smaller drones used for filming. For obvious employment reasons, helicopter pilots and camera operators oppose remote control. And Richard Crudo, president of the American Society of Cinematographers, is right when he told the Hollywood Reporter: “First of all, people don’t realize that these things are like flying lawn mowers — excessive care must be taken with their use.” Like when Harry was almost whacked on the river.

We’re all already in the drone business; our taxes pay for Predators with Hellfire missiles flying above Baghdad protecting locals from Isis incursions. The commonplace drones in our future will be smaller and less lethal. But it’s right now we want to give a lot of thought to how we will license and regulate their use.

Larry Wilson is a member of the Los Angeles News Group editorial board. larry.wilson@langnews.com